by Trevor Fisher
The vote on Article 50 saw Labour officially support a viciously reactionary Tory proposal, which it had failed to amend in any way. Corbyn’s official order to vote for an unamended Article 50 undercut any future influence Labour may have on the next steps. Given that voting for a Tory measure was the complaint against Harriet Harman and the front bench in the summer of 2015 when Corbyn gained the support needed to win the leadership, this is more than a mistake. It is to repeat the mistakes of the Blairite past.
The official Labour position was to move amendments to improve the bill which would allow it to support the trigger of Article 50. While a concession was made, and this needs examination, it was not to satisfy Labour. It was to keep Tory MPs from rebelling and with the exception of Ken Clarke it succeeded. The overall effect, as the hard left Another Europe Is Possible put it, in an accurate observation
“The vote wasn’t close, because Labour voted for it despite losing all its amendments”.
The actual concession was described by AEIP, accurately but not entirely correctly, as “the government agreed that parliament will get a vote on a Brexit deal before it is concluded. This is meaningless, because when this vote happens MPs will have a gun to their heads. Either they accept the government’s deal or the UK gets no deal and crashes out of the EU anyway.”
It is true that the actual vote will be Hobson’s choice, but while May is intending to force a take it or leave it vote, but the negotiations are fraught with dangers for her if Labour gets its act together. However as Labour has voted for an unamended Article 50, Corbyn has no basis for doing this. The campaign on the negotiation has no basis for a Labour intervention as the Party voted to abandon its safeguards. The rebels however have a solid basis for objecting to what May is doing.
This is not the case for Labour peers in the Lords who cannot now move safeguards the party lost in the Commons on a Bill that Labour voted for. Labour’s only logical position was to vote against the unamended Bill as there were no safeguards for what it wanted to see in the negotiations. It was not rocket science what it had to do.
A Corbyn supporter Manuel Cortes, General Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) put it clearly in the Guardian on 6th February. While Cortes had supported the 3 line whip to put the bill to the vote, it had to be amended. The unamended bill was unacceptable. So as he wrote “If Labour’s amendments fail, then the facts change and our Labour Party must fact that circumstance, do the right thing, and whip our MPs into voting against an unamended Tory Brexit. If they don’t, M Ps must themselves do the right thing: they must vote against it anyway”. Clive Lewis and 51 other Labour M Ps did just that.
Corbyn has put another mark against his suitability as Labour leader, and Labour’s vote for an unamended right wing bill puts the unions in a double bind. The Tories have shown they can keep their MPs in line during the attack on union rights which is to come – but while they have effectively eliminated Labour as a force for intervening in the negotiations, the rebels have the potential to become an active force against Theresa May. A take it or leave it vote is something the Tories themselves will have to vote for with a general election in the offing in 2019. But Labour does not. However Jeremy Corbyn has shown no ability to position himself to oppose the Tories in campaigning against negotiations that can go badly wrong, and this is now the dominant fact of Labour politics. Jeremy Corbyn may yet regret the week in which he marched his troops officially into the Lobbies to support Theresa May
Trevor Fisher was a member of the Labour Coordinating Committee executive 1987-90 and secretary of the Labour Reform Group 1995- 2007. He was a member of the Compass Executive 2007-2009
Tags: Article 50, Brexit, EU, Jeremy Corbyn, rebels, three line whip, Trevor Fisher
A Corbyn supporter Manuel Cortes, General Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) put it clearly in the Guardian on 6th February. While Cortes had supported the 3 line whip to put the bill to the vote, it had to be amended.
I am a workplace rep for TSSA funnily enough. He is so divorced from the membership in this neck of the woods it’s incredible. Most of them vote Plaid and nearly all of them voted Leave.
Labour’s article 50 rebels are labours best bet for the Tories to destroy labour for ever
The article 50 rebels were Tory-lite MPs mainly. As ever, they wanted Labour to ignore the people.
I love the term “Tory” Brexit….because in the end it just makes so many of us Tories lol.
We voted for it, we asked for it…and you are saying we are all Tories…Brexit is Brexit. Labour voted for it so how can it be otherwise?
Corbyn used to dismiss the Lib Dems for having ‘jumped in bed with the Tories’; now he criticises them for not joining with him “in bed with the Tories”.
No one is surprised though.
This strikes me as clinging to false hopes. Even if Labour got a new Leader & swung through 180 degrees to oppose Brexit, it wouldnt do you any good. Voters arent going to forget that Labour overwhelmingly voted for Brexit, nothing you do in future will change that. If Brexit is a disaster Labour will get its share of the blame.
“Labour’s Article 50 rebels are the party’s best hope for challenging a hard Tory Brexit”
Sorry but this is utter and complete rubbish..
The rebels plus SNP plus LDs plus all the others who voted against came to 114MPs. Those who voted in favour were 498MPs.
There were 47 Labour rebels.
I cannot see any arithmetical argument for suggesting 47 MPs could successfully rebel. The numbers above say even if 100 extra MPs rebelled the result would have been 398 plays 214 – a majority of 184.
Sp this article’s headline makes as much sense as the rest of it – none.
Even if Labour got a new Leader & swung through 180 degrees to oppose Brexit, it wouldnt do you any good. Voters arent going to forget that Labour overwhelmingly voted for Brexit
Not to mention the little fact that 37% of Labour’s voters voted Leave, that the remaining 63% that voted Remain are largely in the south in seats that Labour doesn’t hold anyway (consider for a moment that McDonnell’s seat voted Leave) and the appalling fact that UKIP has now overtaken Labour amongst C2DE in northern England – the economic groups that are supposed to be the very foundation of Labour.
The vote in the House of Commons is more or less the vote for the Munich Agreement in October 1938. As I lost my file on Munich, I went back and read the debate in Hansard last night. Its salutary.
Whatever happens in the parliamentary pantomime, its reality that decides. I doubt Theresa and Jeremy are going to invade Bohemia and Moravia in the next six months, so It will take a little longer to ensure that the reality of their failure to put the national interest first kicks in. But as I made a bet on LEft Futures website with a Britexiteer that Britain will still be in the EU in 2020, I have put my money where my mouth is.
Only £10 admittedly, but I would not risk so large a slice of my pension if I had any doubts that Britexit is not going to happen. If people are rational, that is.
And who knows in an era of post truth?
Trevor Fisher.
67 MPs from other parties opposed May’s Hard Brexit. Plus 232 Labour MPs in the official opposition that would have been a creditable 299 opposed to Brexit.
Remember that during the campaign it was reliably assessed that three-quarters of all MPs backed Remain. As mentioned above, voters aren’t going to forget that Labour overwhelmingly voted for Brexit. If Brexit is a disaster Labour will get its share of the blame.
chrisso is right, and if Brexit is the disaster it is predicted to be, the LIb Dems and SNP will be the ones who get the credit. As with the Munich Agreement debate in 1938 which I read again this week, truly remarkable, we do not remember the overwhelming vote in favour. WE remember Churchill and the rebels.
Corbyn imposed a three line whip so most the MPs followed the whip. The ones that did not will be the one who will be remembered. If they are supported, and the Party is overwhelmingly Pro EU, the party in the country can switch the official line to opposing all forms of Brexit and take the mantle from the SNP and Lib Dems that it is they who stand against the TOries.
TO do this means marginalizing Corbyn who gave the order, but on this I suspect the left right and centre can be brought together establishing unity and allowing for a principled fight against May and her reactionary agenda.
Trevor Fisher.
Chrisso apart form the 2 labour whips and others who abstained due to being away form parliament for personal reasons you forget the 15 labour MPS who voted leave